Impact of COVID-19 Sport Cancelations on the Self-Identity and Psychological Distress of High School Student-Athletes

The stay-at-home measures enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic led to sudden changes in the lives of individuals worldwide. For high school student-athletes, these changes meant transitioning to online schooling, heavily reducing their social activities, and enduring the cancelation of sport activities. Scholars have expressed concerns related to the potential consequences of these changes on adolescents’ self-identity and psychological distress. The purpose of the present study was to qualitatively explore how the changes induced by the COVID-19 pandemic affected high school student-athletes’ self-identity and psychological distress. Twenty-two Canadian high school student-athletes were interviewed using a semi-structured interview format. Transcripts were subjected to a reflexive thematic analysis, leading to the creation of four central themes: (a) Pre-COVID Identity; (b) COVID Identity Confusion; (c) COVID Psychosocial Distress; and (d) Learning to Dance in the COVID Rain. This study sheds light on the pandemic-related experiences of high school student-athletes in relation to sport cancelation measures and provides insights into how stay-at-home restrictions impacted self-identity and psychological distress levels. These results can help inform interventions aimed at supporting the well-being of high school student-athletes now that school sport programs have resumed operations. Plain Language Summary Twenty-two interviews were conveyed to understand the experiences of Canadian high school student-athletes on how the changes induced by the COVID-19 stay-at-home measures affected their self-identity and psychological distress. Results offer insights on the participants’ feelings of identity confusion during the forced cessation of sports and their coping process.